THE OPEN-AIR SCHOOL

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9387, 5 March 1909, Page 7

THE OPEN-AIR SCHOOL

The-World's Work contains a most dnterestingaooount of. the work of the open-air at Oharlottenburg, a suburb of Berlin, which ■ serves as a model for similar schools elsewhere; Set in the pine-woods in the outskirts of the city, this school gives delicate children the greatest possible chance of growing strong .and at the same time gives them a good education. Eevrything is done in tin open air, save when the ’ weather is very bad, and then open isheds are-used. The children spend ,a little over eleven hours a day there, and during that time they have five meals, sleep or rest for two hours, have 'two hours’ formal instruction, and spend the rest of the time in Nature study, ‘ practical and geography, singing and . play. They grow so hardy that they cheerfully have their meals out of doors with snow on the ground, and 'learn so well under these -favourable , conditions that when they go back to the ordinary school curriculum they are quite able to hold their own with the scholars there. The informal insfcructicn and the healthy surroundings make op for the small amount of formal instruction. Arithmetic is taught by such methods as measuring ■ trees, geography by constructing relief maps in the sand. Some oldfashioned teachers, we fancy, wonld gasp with atsonishment at some of the ways of Oharlottenburg. For instance, a photograph shows mem bers offa class that is being taught to read, lying back at their ease in d£ck chairs. It is rather difficult to be lieve that proper attention can be secured under these idyllic conditions. However, such; schools are declared by fexperts to have fully .justified their existence. “It is delightful to hear the enthusiastic way in which the .teachers talk about the wonderful improvement in the ■children in this respect; they are not only brighter, more alert, and of ■quicker intelligence, but they are more cleanly in their habits, more orderly, more attentive, more an •selfish.’’ England has followed "Germany’s lead in this matter, and the writer in the World’s Work thinks that before long every industrial town in the Empire will have a school of this kind.